


Fallen Angels

by Buttons15



Series: Star Wars AU [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/Buttons15
Summary: Star Wars!AU: Follow Jedi Apprentice Sombra's path as she watches her master Gabriel fall to the dark side and pulls through with the help of a friend.





	1. Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi

The Jedi Creche for force sensitive children usually harbored over thirty initiates any given time. It was all the result of a long project that tested newborns for midchlorians and then grouped them up on clusters divided by galaxy sector.

The kids shared most things – a dormitory, a cafeteria, the showers and the group classes on the basics of the Force. The facility was run and the lessons were taught by young Knights, and so when a Jedi Master visited, it was always an occasion. The apprentices were instructed on manners and respect, the halls were cleaned and the rooms were organized.

That was the state the academy was into on the morning of Master Morrison and Master Reyes’ arrival.

Four year old Sombra absolutely did not give a shit.

She stared out the window, watching the Order’s ship lower itself on the landing pad and dock. If her calculations were right, the general commotion caused by the men’s arrival would last a couple hours, at least. It was more than enough time for her to get in, hack what she needed and get out. As she stepped out of the dormitory room, the intercom chirped into life.

_“All initiates, proceed to Gate B-7 to greet the masters. Repeat: All initiates, proceed to Gate B-7.”_

Sombra looked up – a large sign had ‘gates’ written on it, pointing to the right. She turned left and ran. She avoided the main halls for fear of running into one of the Knights, which would absolutely ruin her plan.  Her stealthy approach was successful, and she would bet everyone was too busy worrying about the Master’s impressions to notice a missing kid.

She snuck into the pantry without any interruptions. It weren’t the packs of cookies or the boxes of milk that interested her, however. Rather, the computer terminal on the corner of the room was her real target. She plugged her pad into the system and began her work.

It took no more than a couple minutes. The alterations were made, and she turned her equipment off and returned it to her backpack. If all things worked well, she’d be back with the group in time for the facility tour, and maybe she could even make one of the Masters slip and fall on their butts.

And then the LED lights that illuminated the room turned red, and she instantly knew she was in trouble. She heard footsteps on the corridor and ducked behind a box of groceries, heart drumming. The door creaked open.

“Who’s there?” a male voice echoed. Sombra didn’t answer. The man, whoever he was, walked in, his boots loud against the stone floor. She tensed. She calculated she could circle around him, if she ducked fast enough. The first and second sprints were successful. On the third, however, he spotted her.

“Hey! You! Kid!” 

She turned. The man, a tall blonde, had a blue lightsaber in hands. For one second, their eyes met. Sombra did not hesitate. Focusing all her mind into bending the Force, she made a movement with her hand and pulled down the shelf behind the stranger.

She saw his eyes widen as he turned back, fast enough that he could stop the metal structure from crashing on his back, not fast enough to stop its contents – a dozen cartons of eggs – from spilling on top of him. Sombra took the distraction and made a run for it. She would have escaped, too, but as soon as she dashed out of the pantry and to the left, she realized her feet were no longer touching the ground.

She spun in the air to see a second man, lightsaber in hands, holding her in place with the Force.

_Kriffing hell._

The first man walked out of the room, cursing. “Did you get the brat?”

Sombra hated him instantly.

“Oh my god,” the second Jedi burst out laughing. “Oh my _god._ Jack.” He was absolutely hysterical. “I can’t believe you were outsmarted by a – a – she can’t be older than five.”

“Four,” she mumbled.

“Four!!” he chuckled harder. She found herself taking a liking to this man. 

“Ha-ha,” Jack scowled. “What’s your name, kid?”

“What is it to you, egg face?”

“Oh my god,” the dark skinned man repeated, wiping tears from his eyes. The blonde gritted his teeth. It would have looked intimidating, if he didn’t have yolk all over his face.

“Can you please put me down?”

“Not until you answer some questions. Now, I won’t ask again. What’s your name?”

Sombra gave him her tongue. The second man shook his head and pushed Jack back.

“Hi kiddo.” He extended his hand. “I’m Gabriel.”

She decided she could spite Jack twice as much if she cooperated with his friend, so she shook Gabriel’s hand, his palm huge in comparison to hers. “I’m Sombra.”

The blonde was turning an interesting shade of red. She marked it off as a success.

“So what were you doing in there?”  Gabriel asked, lowering her down to the floor. Her feet touched the ground and she dusted herself.

“Stealing cookies,” she confessed.

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and arched an eyebrow at her. “Now, now. I know for a fact that’s not true. Whatever you did in that room, you tripped the alarm for database invasion. Should I go over the system to see what you did?”

“Good luck with that,” Sombra snapped. Jack took a step forward, but Gabriel waved him off.

The man crouched so that he would be eye level with her, leaned forward and whispered. “Come on. I won’t tell.”

“Well…” she trailed off, then sighed. “You’re right. I was hacking into cafeteria system.”

“Why?”

 “I… just wanted tortillas to show up on the menu more often. So I tampered with the random number generator. It’s a tiny fix. They’ll never find it. You really won’t let them know?”

Gabriel burst out laughing again and stood. Sombra fiddled with her fingers, nervous.

“Jack,” he turned to his partner, who was now cleaning himself with his robes. “I’m keeping her.”

“ _What?_ ” the blonde stopped on his tracks, half his face egg free. “Gabriel, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why not? Aren’t you the one who keeps bitching that I need to take an apprentice? Here’s a perfectly apt kid –”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the other repeated. “There are dozens, hundreds of well-trained padawans who would die for the opportunity of having a master – ”

“ _Pendejos,_ ” Gabriel retorted. “I don’t want a bunch of boot-licking Jedi wannabes kissing my ass.” He turned to her and winked. “I want the spiteful tortilla lover who _egged you_. What do you say, kid?”

She wasn’t entirely sure what his words implied, but she had liked him so far, and so she nodded. “Sure!”

“Gabriel –”

They were interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps. A Twi’lek Jedi Knight skidded to a halt in front of them. “Master Morrison, Master Reyes –”

_Oh. Uh-uh._

“You were gone for too long, so we worried that whatever had tripped the alarm – _Sombra?_ ”

She was in _so_ much trouble. Sombra looked at the Knight, then at Jack, still dirty and still furious, and it crossed her mind she’d end up without dessert for _weeks_. She had one chance at fixing that situation, and so she took it without hesitating.

She run up to Gabriel and hugged his legs.

The man looked down at her, chocolate eyes widening with surprise, and then he ruffled her hair and she knew she had dodged that blaster shot.

“Oh, it was nothing,” he said, waving it off. “I was just getting to know my new apprentice.”

Sombra did not hide her grin. Jack’s sigh was audible.

“I…see,” the Knight nodded. “I’ll…get the paperwork done.”

“Excellent,” Gabriel hummed. “And…Tott, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Master Reyes.”

“What are we having for lunch?”

The Twi’lek frowned. “The menus are randomized, sir, but if you have a meal you would like to order –”

“Tortillas,” he said, and extended her his hand. Sombra took it with a smile. “I want to eat tortillas today.”

 

* * *

 

Being Gabriel’s apprentice had always been an unorthodox experience, so when he called her over one day to study techniques used by the Sith, she didn’t think much of it. And when they moved on from reading about it to _practicing_ them, well, she didn’t mind that, either. Sombra was someone who appreciated knowledge and power, regardless of where it came from, and ignoring a whole range of techniques solely because they were dangerous always struck her as a waste.

Dark Side magic was different from Jedi force use, based on passion rather than peace of spirit, and while hatred seemed to be the key emotion, it also struck her very much as a slippery slope, and so she did her best to work out her new teachings pulling power from milder feelings instead. It worked, up to a point. She was as cautious as she could be.

They were on a diplomatic mission gone wrong when her resolution was first tested. Only a few corridors separated the two from their ship, and Sombra had successfully disarmed a guard, who now cowered on the floor. She was more than happy to let him go and get the hell out of there.

Gabriel had other ideas.

“Kill him,” he ordered, halting on his tracks.

She hesitated. “Gabo, there’s no need –”

“I _said,_ kill him,” he snapped, the anger in his tone unusual. It scared her. She flicked on her lightsaber, blue blade buzzing into existence, but it was ripped from her fingers, flying straight into her master’s hands.

Sombra turned to him, scowling. “Now I’m supposed to do it barehanded, too?”

“Force choke him,” he commanded.

What she felt at his words could not be described as anything less than dread. Sombra hesitated. She followed him with her peripheral vision, half expecting him to smile and tell her to forget it, he was just testing her.

Instead, he took a step closer, something dark dancing in his chocolate eyes. “Well?”

Sombra pressed her lips into a thin line and extended her hand. She concentrated, letting the Force flow through her. Jedi magic and Sith magic worked in very distinct ways, and as soon as she felt the energy fill her body, she knew she was at the crossroads in which she went with one or the other.

Were she going for light side abilities, she would recognize the fear and concern within her and make peace with those emotions. Instead, she reached deep within her being for anger and hatred, and then she closed her hand into a fist and made the world bend to her will.

The man’s hand immediately shot to his throat. She looked at Gabriel again, still hoping he’d call it back, but he said nothing, his expression set in stone. The man struggled against her harder and harder as he ran out of air.

Sombra’s control wavered. The man pulled in a loud breath, wheezing. She closed her eyes for better focus, sweat rolling down her forehead. It wasn’t just a matter of manipulating the Force – to take a life with Sith powers, her will to kill had to be stronger than the victim’s will to live, and that was simply not the case.

She didn’t want to kill him, not really. The realization weakened her grip further, and she gasped for air, feeling her control slip. Her hand trembled, her fingers involuntarily relaxing.

“ _DO IT!_ ” Gabriel yelled, slamming the wall with his fist.

It wasn’t hatred that pushed her over the edge – it was fear. She contracted her fingers hard, nails digging into the palm deep enough that she drew blood, and a split second after she heard, louder than it was logically possible, the _crunch_ of the man’s collapsed windpipe. It was followed by the snapping of bones as his head twisted into an impossible position, tongue lolling out.

There was a second of quiet, and then the Force washed over her, completely wiping out any resemblance of rational thought with a brutal backlash of terror. If before she had been alarmed, what she felt then was nothing short of panic.  Her pulse quickened just as a wave of nausea made her double over, and for a moment she saw herself through the man’s eyes as her power overwhelmed him and crushed his lungs.

Her head was light and the world spun. Shaking, she leaned against the wall for support, hands sticky with cold sweat.

“Well done,” Gabriel praised, but in her state of mind, the words barely registered.

He carried her through the final steps to the ship, all the while she struggled for breath, shaking. Sombra couldn’t remember the ride back to the order at all – she kept blacking out and waking up in a haze.

 

* * *

 

She was still groggy with sleep when she heard the knock on the door. Rubbing her eyes, she opened it to reveal Gabriel, a smile on his face.  He ruffled her hair and she smiled, yawning.

“Happy birthday, _pequeña,_ ” the man said, picking her up and tossing her in the air.

“Gabo!” She protested, albeit she did it laughing. “I’m too old for that!”

“Wha, fourteen? Please. I’ll be giving you piggybacks until you’re twenty.” he put her down and she flipped him the finger. “Come on, kiddo, I’ve got something for you.”

She folded the sleeves of her pajama and looked back into her room. “Sure, let me just grab the saber – constant vigilance and all.”

“What, this junk?” He pulled something from his belt – her lightsaber. She didn’t like his tone. “You won’t be needing it anymore, I’ve got you something better. Come on.”

He pulled her by the hand and she followed him down the halls of his house. The Jedi Temple was visible in the horizon, but Gabriel had always liked his privacy and so they made their headquarters into a simple house on Coruscant’s countryside. He led her down to the basement, where a large machine laid, steam coming off its metal plates.

“So you got me a…huh. Giant robot thing?”

He shook his head, pressing his palm against the steel. His hand should have burned, but she knew he kept the heat away. “That’s a compressor. It’s where you’ll make the crystal for your new lightsaber.”

Sombra hesitated. “A synth crystal? Gabo… there are a lot of natural ones growing in the caves.”

He pulled his own saber and flicked it on, revealing a crimson blade. He handed it to her and she took it, moving it in the air very carefully. It crackled with energy, and every now and then, a ripple would form in its surface.

“Synth crystals are more powerful,” he pulled it back from her fingers with the force. “And easier to augment. It will take you between twenty four hours to four days to make one, but the sheer _strength_ you’ll achieve makes it absolutely worth it.”

“Are you sure?” She bit her bottom lip in thought. He scowled, and she quickly continued, “I mean. Wouldn’t a red saber look a little… conspicuous? I understand wanting to be able to make use of all sides of the Force, but a synth crystal… people may start wondering…” Sombra trailed off.

“Wondering what?” he pressed.

“You know.” She broke eye contact.

Gabriel took a step closer “Say it.”

She swallowed. “Wondering if you may be… a Sith.”

“And if I was?” he pressed.

The question raised all the red flags in her brain. She didn’t immediately reply, carefully formulating her next words. Had he asked her that when she was younger, she’d immediately consider it a test and answer accordingly. Lately, though, she was not so sure.

“You’re…my master, no matter what path you choose to take,” she said finally. “If your judgement says that’s the way, then I’ll follow.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “Good. Work on your crystal, kid. Meditate on it – shape it to your will, to your passions. Whenever you’re ready, just pull the machine lever to begin.”

“ _Sí,_ I’ll…” she trailed off. “Think I’ll have some breakfast first? Might not be a good idea to go four days on an empty stomach.”

“Sure,” he nodded. “There is someone I have to meet, so I’ll be out for a couple days. When I’m back and you’re done, we should go to downtown to celebrate, eh?” He gave her a light punch on the shoulder.

Sombra forced a smile. “For sure, Gabo.”

She waited a good twenty minutes after he’d left to run to her room and pack her things up. She grabbed a change of clothes and stuffed it on a backpack, then quickly transferred all her pocket money to a custom built untraceable credstick. She took her slicing tools – personalized datapad and all invasive software she spent her free time building.

Running downstairs, she found out that Gabriel still had her lightsaber. Cursing, Sombra went for the next best thing – an old vibroblade he kept mounted on the wall as decoration. Double checking she had everything, she went to the door and turned the knob.

Locked.

Sombra searched for the spare key, usually kept on the kitchen bowl.

Gone.

The implications of that danced on the back of her mind, and she ignored them as best as she could. She grabbed a living room chair and hurled it out of the glass window, shattering it to pieces. She hopped over broken glass and ran, nabbing someone’s landspeeder on the way.

By the time Gabriel got home, Sombra was already on her way to the Outer Rim.

 

* * *

 

The world was not kind to runaway teenagers, but Sombra learned her street smarts fast. Her five thousand credits ran out in less than a month, and she got by with slicing gigs for gangs. Whenever available, she’d sneak into empty cantina bedrooms for a night of sleep, but mostly she passed out on square benches and street corners, often too drunk to care.

The first six months went by on a blur, all her energy focused solely on staying alive. The hardship taught her more than just survival – it also taught her more about the dark side of the Force than Gabriel could ever have.  In an environment where hesitation usually meant death, she used whatever she had to defend herself.

The streets introduced her to a new range of emotions she’d never truly experienced: spite, abandonment, hatred, worthlessness, rage. She clung to them, because apathy was terrifying. Her mind was never peaceful enough for Jedi magic, and she held on to her passions knowing the power that seeped from them would often save her life. Sombra would often choose pain over feeling nothing at all.

She killed. She killed with blades and blasters rather than with the Force, because she quickly noticed that the latter was dangerous in a way mere weapons were not: it was _addictive._   Whatever she felt, she felt twice as hard when she combined it with the Force.

Her normal emotions paled in comparison, and the sense of emptiness that followed a kill made her want to do it again, if only to hide the gaping hole it left behind. Sombra resisted. She’d drown it in alcohol instead, when she could get her hands on some. When she couldn’t, she’d just brave through withdrawal with sheer willpower.

She survived another six months. And then another. She wasn’t sure what the tipping point was, but she eventually decided to go back. She did her research, of course, and that was when she found that Gabriel – or Darth Regnus, how he’d been calling himself lately – had taken another apprentice. That knowledge hit her harder than she could have expected.

Still, the Sith way was simple and clear in such situations. She could have her master back – all she needed to do was to take out the competition. Sombra knew that would be easier said than done – whoever this person was, she wouldn’t stand a chance half-starved and with a rusty vibroblade. She needed power, so she sought it.

And that was how she found herself digging through Sith ruins, knee deep in dust and traps, knowing that she was bound to acquire _something_ from it, because these temple remains were never empty. The tripwires, the spikes, the murderous robots, all this she’d predicted.

What Sombra did _not_ expect was that she’d find someone else in there.

She saw the other before she was seen, and she would have taken advantage of that if the person hadn’t walked _straight into a pressure pad_. Good sense told her to just let them die, but Sombra wasn’t the kind to let people get impaled in front of her, even if it was out of sheer stupidity. Her instinct got the better of her and before she knew it, she’d force-pushed the stranger away from the set of blades that poked out of the ceiling.

The other’s hood fell down, revealing a young woman about her age. She turned to Sombra, blue eyes wide, and blinked.

“Oh.” Unexpectedly, the woman let out a wide grin. “You saved me. Thanks!” She stood and casually dusted herself, as if she hadn’t just had a run in with death.  “I’m Angela, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“Name’s Sombra,” she extended her hand and helped the blonde up.  Close as she was, she instantly recognized Angela’s robes and the lightsaber hanging on her hip. “You’re with the Jedi Order?”

“I am!” She beamed when she said it. Sombra had a feeling she was someone to whom smiles came easy. “I’m a padawan, but not for much longer. I’m here for my Trial of Courage.”

“Here? All by yourself? Strange.” She frowned. “Sith ruins are no place for baby Jedi.”

If the other was offended, she didn’t show. Instead, she looked back to where the trap had sprung and nodded. “They really aren’t.  What you did just now, that was the Force, wasn’t it? Are you a padawan, too? Maybe we’re meant to do it together.”

Sombra scoffed. “No, I’m…here for something else entirely.”

“Oh.” Angela seemed disappointed by her answer. “…well, would you like to do it together anyway? I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“I… you don’t even know what I want. What if I told you I’m here to put my hands on ancient Sith artifacts to increase my power for selfish reasons?”

The padawan crossed her arms over her chest. “Then I’d tell you they’re probably going to be on the ritual chamber – which is precisely where I need to go.  So I don’t see why we shouldn’t team up.”

 “Well…” Sombra blinked. “…okay, I guess. Can’t argue with that logic.”

They walked together, picking their ways through mechanical traps. Despite her initial distraction, Angela was in fact quite good at spotting them, and they moved faster than Sombra would have on her own. She thought the other would be chatty, but Angela proved herself surprisingly quiet through their path. The slicer could tell her companion was focused, which she appreciated.

“You know what is strange,” the blonde muttered after they had been walking for a while. Her green lightsaber was the sole source of light in the corridor. “So far we haven’t met a single Tuk’ata  or Shyrack. I mean, I’m not complaining – I’m useless with the saber. But when I saw you I thought maybe the Sith hounds were going for you instead.”

“They weren’t,” she replied, stepping over a tripwire. “There doesn’t seem to be any. The crypt is… oddly empty. Oh, here – I think that’s our destination.”

The large stone doors left no doubt about the main chamber’s location. They stopped at its feet. Sombra calculated it had to weight a couple tons, at least. She tried to push it with her shoulder, but as expected, it was useless. The slicer took a step back to stare at them.

“Force push on the count of three?” Angela suggested.

She nodded and dug her feet hard on the ground, bracing herself. “One…two…three!”

They bent the Force together, making the doors groan. Their combined powers were enough to open a crack between the two marble ends, and they snuck trough together. They entered a room with an open roof which let light seep in, and Angela sheathed her saber to look around, coughing at the dust.

Despite how the walls were decorated to show Sith history, there wasn’t much to be seen on the room –broken furniture at every corner, vegetation growing from the cracks in the floor, a simple ceremonial table. On top of it sat a small statuette depicting someone with a lightsaber. They approached it, and she saw Angela frown, running her index finger over the corner of the slab stone.

“Huh,” the blonde mumbled, leaning forward to inspect the artifact closer. “Do you sense anything unusual about it?”

Sombra didn’t touch it. “Not particularly, no. What… what exactly were you sent here to fetch?”

“I just need a token,” the other explained, picking the object up. They waited for some sort of reaction but none came. The padawan slid it into her purse. “Something to show I’ve been in and came out with my life. This thing will do just fine, but…”

“There’s something weird going on here.”

“Someone’s been here before us,” Angela pinpointed, rubbing her index and middle fingers with her thumb. “The dust is barely settled.”

“And the conspicuous lack of creatures,” she added. “You think we’ve been set up?”

“ _I’ve_ been set up,” the padawan corrected. “That’s my trial, remember? Your being here is just a coincidence. It looks like whatever you were looking for here, someone already took it, and then left me this piece of decoration as a test.”

“You’re wrong, though,” Sombra walked around the room, looking for details she might have missed. “I didn’t come here on a tip. I chased… force echoes, if you will.” She crouched in front of the panels, examining them.

“You think they missed something?” Angela walked over next to her.

“ _Sí, Ángel,_ ” she brushed her fingers against the stone carvings that depicted early Sith history. “There’s still something to be found.”

“Here, look,” the blonde stopped in front of a scene in particular.  “This is interesting, you see? All the other images are about Sith, but this one in particular… this man is a Jedi.”

She saw what her partner meant – the figure in question had been carved in a very distinct style from the others around it. As she approached, she felt something in the Force shift. She extended her hand and touched the cool stone –

Tendrils of red energy spread from where she’d make contact and over the stone, bathing it in crimson hue. Frowning, Angela mimicked her movement, and the wall responded with sparks of blue. Something clicked and whirred, and the two turned back to the source of the horrible grinding noise to see the ceremonial table had sunk on the ground, revealing a descending staircase.

“Well, what do you know,” Sombra mused, kicking a pebble down. “Guess I’m going down the rabbit hole. You have the thing you came for, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m going with you,” the other snapped, switching her lightsaber on.  “The door didn’t open to you, it opened to _us_. You might need good ole Jedi me down there.”

“Point, point,” she nodded. “You sure you wanna go even if you don’t have to? Things might not…be so peaceful on the unexplored bits of a sith ruin.”

“I love adventure,” Angela smirked. Sombra realized she was growing oddly fond of that warm smile. “Besides, I owe you one.”

The stairs led them to a dead end – a perfectly square room with smooth walls and no visible objects to interact with. Still, the very air on the chamber seemed to vibrate with energy. Angela led the way, her saber illuminating the path. As soon as Sombra got off the last step, the ground shook under them, and the stone arches of the door collapsed, trapping them in.

And then the distant wall slid down, revealing a large metal sphere. It stirred, rolling their way, steam seeping off cracks in the metal.

“Uh-oh,” the blonde muttered. “That looks…hostile.”

“You don’t say,” Sombra snapped. “You mentioned your lightsaber skills are…subpar?”

“Understatement,” Angela whispered. “I’m good at healing – I deal well with the Living and Cosmic aspects of the Force.”

The droid stopped a few meters away from the two, the engines inside it clicking. And then the metal plates moved and four armlike structures popped out, each unfolding a large metal blade.

_Mierda._

“All right, all right,” She said, the two backing together. “Hand me the saber and stay away. Give me a… force boost, if you’re able to do that.”

The robot now had legs to go with the arms, standing a good three meters tall.  Angela didn’t question her decisions, instead swapping her weapon with the slicer’s vibroblade and retreating back to a corner. Sombra stared up at the droid as it stomped its way closer, assuming a fighting stance.

_Great. Just great._

The machine struck in a flurry. She blocked the first blade with the lightsaber, but was forced to force-jump back when the other three came her way. Cursing under her breath, she circled it, learning its movements, ducking and jumping when it got too close. Angela’s boost worked its way into her system and she began to feel particularly energized.

The next time the droid approached to try and chop her into cubes, she was ready. Rolling to avoid the first two blades, she ducked to dodge a third and struck against the robot’s metal hull hard before backing and narrowly avoiding the last arm. Her blow didn’t make a dent.

_Lightsaber resistant armor. Of fucking course._

Sombra was moving gradually faster and faster, enough that her enemy’s movements seemed to slow in comparison. She approached again, looking for breaches and cracks – anything she could hit and actually cause damage. Her first two attempts were unsuccessful. On the third, she hit something on the back of one arm and it dropped, limp.

It didn’t come cheap – the droid managed to land a large cut on her thigh in return, and she stumbled. On the corner of her vision, she saw Angela shift her stance, and the wound rapidly shrunk in size. Sombra dodged a strike with a backflip, blocking another arm with her saber as she did so. The effort made her fall on her butt, and she threw herself down to avoid the last arm. She realized too late that it left her in no position to escape. The droid descended on her, aiming to impale –

She was force-yanked back half a dozen meters, back scraping on irregular ground. She gritted her teeth, scrambling to her feet and pulling the lightsaber back to her hands. Angela gave her a thumbs up and she nodded in thanks. The robot trampled closer, and the two split apart, each moving to one of its sides. Sombra breathed in, exhaled slowly and charged.

They clashed, but she was beginning to feel weariness in her limbs. The machine crossed its two upper blades and made open-and-close movements, mimicking scissors. The lower blade which still worked swiped circles about waist-height. She followed its movements very carefully, calculating.

“ _Ángel_ ,” she hissed. “On the count of three, amp your thing up to the max. One –”

She circled the droid, running to its back. It turned, steam hissing.

“Two –”

The robot faced her fully, forming the impromptu scissors.

“ – Three!”

Sombra cartwheeled ahead, putting blind trust that the boost would come. Sure enough, she felt her body reach a new high, the droid’s movements abruptly slowing down. Using the Force for better momentum, she landed on top of the lower blade and jumped again. She blocked the blades from closing in with the lightsaber and used it as a propulsive lever, flying between them then pulling the weapon free.

And then she was in the air right above the droid, having a great view of its superior opening. Turning the saber so it pointed down, she threw it, pushing with the force so it was wedged inside the droid, driving it up the hilt into the wires. She hit the ground on her feet, bending her knees and then rolling to reduce impact.

“Holy _shit,_ ” Angela called from a distance. “That was _incredible!_ ”

The robot screeched and tumbled, its legs giving out under it. And yet the droid was not done – rather than falling, it stuck two of its three functional blade arms on the ground while brandishing the other. Sombra backed. The droid carefully pulled one of its hands free and impaled the ground ahead of it, then did so with the other, dragging itself like some bizarre crab.

_What does it take to kill this thing?!_

She tried to pull the lightsaber free with the Force, but it was stuck.

“Vibroblade!” Sombra yelled, and a moment later it was on her hands. She tensed.

The droid advanced, flinging its arm. She raised her weapon to block it and as soon as the metal clashed, her blade shattered into a thousand pieces. Unexpectedly, the robot pulled a second arm from the ground, completely breaking its balance, and blindsided her. Sombra had enough reflex to dodge the sharp edge, but was still knocked down by the metal limb.

She fell to the ground, the droid on top of her. It pulled an arm from the floor, earth exploding around it, and struck down. Sombra rolled just in time, but the robot didn’t give up. She tried the lightsaber again, but it was too far, sparks exploding every time the machine moved.

_Sparks._

Something clicked in her brain, and suddenly she knew what she had to do.

There was a brief moment of panic in which it crossed her mind that though she knew the theory, she’d never actually done it before. That fear she channeled, together with everything else she could gather – all the accumulated anger and pain from the last couple years, all the insecurity all the repulse.

She focused on that enormous mass of negativity, letting it grow until it was night unbearable, and then she compressed it all into one burst of the Force. Sombra yelled, reaching out and grabbing the droid.

 An arc of electricity burst out from her arm and travelled into the machine, frying its circuits. Sombra felt her skin blister where her hand made contact with the metal, and still she didn’t let go, using the pain as yet more fuel for the lightning. She held on until she couldn’t do it anymore, only letting go when the edges of her vision darkened.

The droid groaned and collapsed under its weight. She saw it head on her direction to crush it – and then it was Force pushed away, Angela sliding to her knees next to her. She felt the other’s hands on hers, briefly exhaling when the pain dulled.

And then the room flashed pure white, and the two were whisked away to another time and another place. She could only process flashes of the knowledge that was suddenly crammed into her brain.

Sombra saw a ritual to reverse the irreversible, death itself. A Jedi and a Sith were required – one to _seek_ and one to _pierce_. The details were blurry but permanently branded into her brain, and she’d be always able to bring them to mind.

Right then, though, in her state of exhaustion, she kept the name only: _Khamor Bhakva._

She slipped in and out of conscience. When she finally came to, she found herself outside the ruins, sun warming her cheeks. Angela sat next to her, back leaning against a rock, gaze lost in the horizon. Sombra noticed she had her head resting on the other’s lap. She sat up, shielding her eyes from the sunlight with her hand.

“We got out,” the blonde absently spoke up.

“I can see that,” Sombra snapped, her attention now focused on her palm. A long, treelike scar extended from her fingertips to halfway up her elbow.  

“It’ll fade, the scar,” Angela murmured. “How do you feel?”

The question gave her pause. _Angry_ was the first word that came to mind, and thinking about it seemed to summon a whole range of frustrations. She was irritated at the way her muscles felt exhausted, furious that her search had resulted in the loss of so much energy and her weapon in exchange for knowledge she had very little practical use to.

Below that burning hot rage, there were other emotions that popped up sharply: resentment that went deep into her core – that her master never looked for her, instead taking another apprentice. Concern that whoever this person was, she wouldn’t be able to best them. Thinking about it only made wrath seep into those feelings, and she watched bitterness grow into loathing as a new thought began to form in her mind –

_I should kill him. Not only his apprentice, but also Gabriel. Servers him right, for abandoning me like that._

“It really gets to you, doesn’t it?” the blonde turned to her, tilting her head. “Dark side magic, I mean.  I can feel your turmoil.”

“The fuck would you know about that,” she hissed. “Coddled little Order baby that you are?”

Angela pressed her lips on a thin line and exhaled through her nose. “I’ve been privileged,” she agreed in an even tone. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about you.” The blonde brushed her fingers against Sombra’s. “And I would like to help, if you’d allow me.”

“What can you –”

“Who are you doing this for?”

The question made her stop in her tracks, and before she knew it, Angela had moved closer. Slowly, ever so slowly, the other extended her hand until it touched Sombra’s cheek. The fingers were warm and soft against her skin. The padawan leaned in closer and closer without breaking eye contact, until their foreheads touched –

She could never quite put into words what it felt to have another mind brush against hers like that. It caught her off guard – the Order taught their children how to shield their thoughts from a young age, yet it was Sombra’s first time experiencing contact which did not come in the shape of violent assault. She could have resisted, but curiosity got the best of her and she relaxed instead, closing her eyes.

_Peace._

Angela’s essence washed over her, leaking into her and filling her with the other’s emotions.  The blonde’s calm was rooted deep within her soul and vastly overpowered Sombra’s ire. Every time her mind lashed out, the padawan’s conjured something serene – the feeling of warm sunshine on a cold day, the feeling of a hot bath after a long evening, the cracking of a lit fireplace.

The slicer couldn’t tell which of the sensations were hers. Rationally, her mind told her that the taste of ‘ _Alderaanian chocolates_ ’, a dish she’d never had, could only belong to the mind of the other. Yet the experience of the sweet taste and smooth texture melting in her mouth felt as real as if she’d only just lived it. Likewise, she wondered whether Angela could feel with the same intensity the smell of freshly fried tortillas.

She lost track of time, like she lost track of whose memories were whose. They were breathing in synchrony when they finally pulled apart, slow and steady, but when contact broke Sombra still felt out of air. She saw Angela’s hand tremble when it left her cheek.

“Wow,” she exhaled, staggered, opening her eyes. She still felt resentment. She still felt hurt, and even angry.

Yet it no longer overwhelmed her or dominated her thoughts. It no longer pushed her into reckless actions she was bound to regret. Acceptance, and then letting go – those were the Order’s norms when it came down to feelings. She wasn’t sure about the latter, but she decided she could make the former a habit.

Angela leaned back against the stone, eyes closed. On an impulse, Sombra plopped back down on her lap. The blonde opened her eyes slightly and gave her a stern look, though the corners of her mouth twitched in a smirk. A moment later, her scalp was being stroked. It made Sombra feel warm inside.

 _I think I have a crush,_ her brain offered, and the abrupt turn from life-and-death exploration to common teenage problem was so surreal, she burst out laughing.

“I should get going,” the blonde muttered, looking at the horizon where the planet’s second sun was setting. “Still got a whole bunch of trials to go.”

“Be careful,” she mumbled, still feeling there was something off about the entire situation. “We should keep in touch.” She paused, clearing her throat. “Um, if you want to.”

Angela _beamed_ at her. “Of course I do. Here –” she reached inside her bag and pulled something – her lightsaber. “It survived the fight unscathed…mostly. I’d like you to keep it.”

Sombra sat up and looked at the other, frowning. “Your lightsaber? Don’t you need that?”

The padawan shrugged. “I’ll just say I dropped it into a steaming pit of lava and no one will be the wiser. It wouldn’t even be the first time.”

She chuckled, taking the weapon and flicking it on. Despite Angela’s wariness, it seemed perfectly functional. “Are you sure? This is kind of a big deal.”

“Mmmhm.” The other stood and extended her hand. Sombra took it and was helped up. “You need it more than I do – and you’ll make better use of it, too. It’s going to help you until you figure out how to make your own.”

She was unexpectedly touched by the gesture. She felt a little like tearing up, so she looked away.

“What are you going to do now?” Angela asked as they put the ruins behind them together.

She thought very carefully about her answer. She had a weapon now, and she’d grasped what was probably the most advanced of Sith techniques. With effort and a good plan, she was quite positive she could take down Gabriel’s apprentice. Yet the idea just wasn’t that appealing anymore.

Her mind felt back on track for the first time in ages, and she realized that as much as the past hurt, she wanted nothing more than to leave it behind. There were things which brought her joy, like slicing, and she decided she would rather invest on that than chase down ghosts. Having something to look forward lifted her mood.

That, and having a friend.

“I’m going to make myself some damn tortillas,” she replied after a long while. “Care to join me before you go?”

“It would be my pleasure.”


	2. Quod Me Nutrit, Me Destruit

Sombra walked around the halls of the Jedi Temple, dodging guards by taking side entrances and ducking behind furniture. She moved with the ease and certainty of someone who had been sneaking into places for years. Every now and then, she’d come across a security camera, but those she easily evaded with her custom built cloaking device.

She navigated to the room she was looking for, quickly cracked the passcode and slid in.

Angela turned to her when she heard the sound of the door closing and grinned when their eyes met. “Oh, Sombra! Hello!”

Though they did keep in contact, they hadn’t seen one another ever since their first meeting, and Sombra hadn’t announced her visit, either. There was something oddly comforting about the other’s nonchalance at whatever surprise life threw at her.

She smiled back. “Miss me, Knight?”

The blonde pushed against the wall with her feet, making the hovering chair she sat on slide towards Sombra. “Well… I’ve been quite busy and you do holovid every so often –”

The slicer lightly slapped her friend on the back of her nape and stuck out her tongue, eliciting a laugh.

“Here, look what I brought you,” she opened her bag and pulled out a package. Recognition flashed in Angela’s eyes and suddenly there were arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She flushed, clumsily hugging back. “Uh –”

“Thank you.” Angela pulled back only to lean in close again, until their foreheads touched. The blonde rubbed their noses together, then snatched the box of Alderaanian chocolates and ran back to her bed. Her blush intensified.

“It’s nothing,” she said, walking over to join her sweet tooth friend and taking a seat. “Congratulations on passing your trials, Ángel.”

“Mmmmhm,” the other grunted, her mouth full. The corners of her mouth were dirty. “Master Rutledge went easy on me,” she confessed, licking her fingertips. “I still suck with the saber. Want some?”

“…sure,” Sombra plucked a chocolate from the box and popped it into her mouth. The taste was good, but not quite the same as she remembered. It took her a couple seconds to pinpoint what was missing – Angela’s warm feelings attached to them. She kicked her shoes off and crossed her legs on top of the bed. “So what’s the story behind those? You’re from Alderaan, yeah? I read that in your records.”

“Stop profiling me,” the Jedi chided, smirking, then broke eye contact and looked out of the window. She had her legs extended and crossed at the ankles. Sombra wondered if it would be okay to lie down on her lap. “Yeah, I’m… from the core. I don’t remember it at all, except…” she scoffed.

“The chocolates?” She prompted.

“…yeah.” The blonde rubbed her own arms, hugging herself. “It’s a well-developed world, you see. We all get tested when we are born, for things like sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis… and midchlorians. So my parents knew from the start they wouldn’t get to keep me.”

“Oh.” One of the consequences of the no attachment rule was that it cut force sensitive children from their families at a very young age. It was a touchy subject to many and not often debated. Disregarding any notion of personal space, Sombra plopped down and rested her head on her friend’s lap.

“I get flashes, here and there,” Angela continued, tangling her fingers on the slicer’s hair, gaze still lost in the distance. “One of them is of the chocolates. It’s very blurry, I was probably two or three years old, and it’s not… very telling of anything. But I think you understand why I’d treasure it.”

Sombra did. Enforcement of the rule was strict, and she knew her early selection by a master had been an exception rather than the norm; usually, apprentices would be collectively taught in the crèches until their late teens. And while friendships were not openly discouraged, any two children who got too close were bound to be separated eventually.

Jedi were raised to be _lonely_. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like silent but brutal violence. She was one of the rare few who had been graced with a paternal figure: that of Gabriel.

The thought hurt.

“How have you been, _schatz?_ ” Her use of the Alderaanian term of endearment when she had lived so little in the planet only made it seem all the more cruel. Sombra wondered how many of the Order hung on to cultures that were effectively not theirs. “I saw you listed yourself dead as one of Darth Regnus’ victims. Smart move.”

“Yeah, I figured it would sound very believable, and even if he denied the crime, it’s not like anyone would take his word for it anyway.” She rolled belly up to face her friend. “It’s been… hard. Painful to see him like that.”

“Have you figured out who the apprentice is?”

“Not yet, I haven’t,” she muttered, closing her eyes. “I haven’t exactly been making an effort. It just… brings back too many memories.”

She felt the other’s fingers stroke her cheek. “That’s good. Wise of you. Let the Shadows worry about that hornet’s nest.” There was a pause. “Another chocolate?” her voice sounded muffled, and the slicer could imagine she was talking with a full mouth.

 Sombra smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. “Yes, please.”

She opened her mouth. Angela scoffed. When the next sweet reached her tongue, it tasted better – she now had her very own emotions to go with it.

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra felt Gabriel’s death across the force on the very moment it happened.

She froze in place and the cup she’d been holding slipped from her hands, shattering on the floor.

The slicer had done her best to silence their bond, pushed it into a far corner of her mind where she wouldn’t have to feel it and be reminded of what they had become. But nothing could have stopped her from feeling the backlash of his death. The strength of it was enough that it made her drop to her knees, and she barely felt the glass break through her skin.

Sombra couldn’t say she hadn’t been expecting it, what with the Order’s collective efforts to hunt Gabriel down. She placed a hand over her chest, where it physically hurt so much her eyes watered. Experience had taught her that facing her feelings was the way to go, and so she did – she looked at the pain and the sorrow straight in the face.

And then she sobbed her heart out.

Sombra regretted many things, and they all came to light as she screamed into her damp pillow, over and over. She did it again on the next night, and on the following. The anguish was endless, distorting her very perception of time – she couldn’t remember a time before it felt so bad. She couldn’t imagine a future in which it wouldn’t.

She missed him in a way she didn’t know was possible, his absence leaving a gaping hole on her very soul. She understood anger. She understood abandonment and sadness. But until then, she hadn’t really understood grief. It shone a new light on the rule of attachment, because it was evident how such feelings could be seen as risky. Sombra wasn’t afraid they’d make her turn to the dark side, though.

Rather, she worried that they’d turn her insane.

She didn’t open the door when she heard knocking. Her room was automatically paid for, money discounted from an account which had enough for months, years even. Instinct kicked in when she heard the door fling open anyway, and she hopped off bed and went for her lightsaber.

“Sombra?” 

She relaxed only mildly when she recognized the voice. “Ángel? What the –”

Arms around her, pulling her, keeping her close. “I’m so sorry,” her friend didn’t let go. “I came as fast as I could, I – I got held up in the fallout –”

“How long has it been?” she backed out to her bed, thinking.

“Two weeks,” the other replied. “Sombra, I’m so sorry, I should’ve came sooner –”

“Shut up – just. Just shut up.” she snapped, falling back into the bed. “…hold me?”

The blonde laid down next to her and leaned in, pressing her lips to Sombra’s forehead. When their minds touched, it was very different from the first time. There was no dark side energy to be purged, only genuine sadness, and rather than washing over her, Angela’s soul seemed only to echo her feelings.

 “Talk to me, _liebling,_ ” her friend whispered.

Sombra closed her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of someone else – it was undignified. She found herself speaking anyway.

“I wish I had the chance to give him a proper goodbye.” She let the words sink in for a moment. “I wonder if it was my fault. If I could have stopped him. If I made things worse.” She buried her face on Angela’s shoulder. “He was still Gabo when I left. What pushed him past the point of no return – it might have been me.”

“You were just a scared kid,” the Jedi’s hand stroked her nape. “We are still just scared kids.”

She didn’t answer. She just pressed closer and fought back tears.

“You were my first friend,” Angela mumbled, barely audible. “My only _real_ friend. For a long time I was afraid I’d just…fade. Just let go of everything that made me human. Part of me _wanted_ to, but part of me never lost hope that if… that if I just kept smiling, maybe someone would _stay._ ”

It was her turn to reach out and touch the other’s cheek.  Angela leaned into her hand.

“And then you came along, and having you was… amazing. Like keeping a very secret treasure that the Order could never hear about lest they take it away again. _Attachment_.” She took a deep breath. “I always knew there was something lacking, but I never realized how much I missed it until I had it. Now that I do, I don’t want to ever let go.”

Sombra ran her thumb over the blonde’s jaw, tracing it. “What are they doing to us, my angel?”

“I don’t know.” Her friend swallowed. “It scares me that what we have is absolutely forbidden. That it might be… wrong. Even though it doesn’t feel that way.”

“It doesn’t,” she asserted. “It isn’t.”

“If you weren’t attached, you wouldn’t be hurting,” the Jedi pointed out.

“I’d choose having him over the alternative a hundred times again,” she countered. “And if I could have him back, I’d hurt a thousand times over for it.”

“You’re strong,” Angela pressed her nose on the slicer’s scalp. “I don’t know if I have it in me.”

She brushed her fingertips against the other’s lips. “I think the whole point is that you’re not supposed to carry the burden alone.”

The other closed her eyes. There was one long moment of stillness, in which all that could be heard were their slowed breaths.

“Do you think this is love, Sombra?”

The word was scary and unthinkable. Everything in her system revolted against what she had been taught to be the most dangerous of transgressions, the most fatal of sins.

“…Yeah. Yeah, I think it might be.”

 

* * *

 

Sombra did her best to put the past behind her, really did. As much as it hurt, Gabriel’s death also meant she could finally move on from her past in the Order and into the life she wanted to lead. She built her own empire in the virtual world, up to a point where there was very little data beyond her reach. She went by many names and made considerable money, extending her business over the Outer Rim.

She was working on an artificial neural network to link up the data she collected when her communicator rung. Hissing, she eyed the clock. Sombra had a very strict eight-to-six work hour schedule – not because she minded doing her job out of time per se, but because she wanted her clients to understand _she_ was the one making the rules, not the other way round. She liked having them run laps to figure out in what timezone her current planet was.

The slicer’s mood lifted considerably when she saw the caller ID.

“Hi Ángel,” she greeted, kicking her legs up the desk. “Glad to know miss Knight took the time to talk to a mere padawan outcast like me,” she teased lightheartedly. It wasn’t unusual that Jedis would return from a large mission and Angela would be busy for days on end.

“Pah!” her friend smiled. “To be fair, you’re as much a padawan as I am.”

“Mmm, you’re right,” the slicer pulled up her datapad and typed as she spoke. “I _can_ pull out advanced Sith techniques. Do you figure I should take a Darth name?”

“Sure. Something classy and subtle.” Angela paused. “…Darth Sombra?”

She burst out laughing. “I should get something different every month, just to throw the Jedi Shadows off their game. Neck deep in work again?”

“Mhhm, sort of,” the blonde took a sip from a glass she’d been holding. “Master Morrison has been giving me some special attention lately.”

“Ooh, think a promotion is incoming?”

“I…” The Jedi hesitated. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Sombra put her feet back on the ground and sat up straight. “Something wrong, angel?”

“It’s… probably nothing.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Humor me.”

Angela sighed. “I don’t like him much, he just… call it a gut feeling.” The blonde shook her head. “Being on his sights makes me… uneasy. Uncomfortable.”

The slicer frowned. “He and Gabriel were close, but I was never very much a fan either. Too strict. Too stiff with his rules. When I was a kid, I used to hide when he came visit.”

Her friend’s expression eased. “Always a piece of work, weren’t you?”

Sombra stuck out her tongue. “You love me.”

Angela’s only answer was a smirk.

 

* * *

 

The slicer had a habit of, as her friend liked to say, “profiling people”. It wasn’t at all surprising that the first thing she did once she’d hung up was to boot up her datapad and give Jack Morrison a thorough search, if only to set her mind at ease.

Her own memories on the man were fuzzy at best, and she couldn’t really recall much beyond a faint sense of dislike. Ultimately, he was the one who dealt Gabriel his death, and though she didn’t blame the Jedi for doing what all agreed needed to be done, she sure as hell didn’t like him for it.

She dug up everything she could find, from birth certificates to Trial results. At first nothing seemed to pop out, but the more she looked, the more his actions seemed to follow a pattern. The feeling on the back of her head that she was missing something made her keep looking, and at the end of two weeks, she had collected enough data that she knew all but the color of his socks.

It was past eleven in the night when she decided there was nothing more to be found. It didn’t mean her work was done – instead, she transferred the information to her main computer and booted up the neural network so that it could make connections between Morrison’s data and everything else she had access to.

The loading bar read fifteen per cent when Angela rung her. Frowning, she rolled her chair to the holographic projector. Unlike some of her clients, her friend never contacted her past ten.  She tapped a button and picked up the call.

Sombra knew something was off the very moment she looked at the blonde’s face. She was used to the rings under the other’s eyes, but never before she’d seen her friend looks so disheveled.

“…Ángel?” she tilted her head. “Is something the matter?”

“Sombra!” There was one long moment of silence in which Angela very sharply looked at the door. “Uh, not really. Just…been missing you.”

The slicer tensed, biting her bottom lip in thought. “I’ve been working on a new project… how have you been? You haven’t called in a while.”

Her friend laughed nervously. “Yeah, lots of work lately. I think... remember that promotion we talked about? I think it may be coming soon.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s great news! We should probably celebrate.”

“We should!” Angela smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s your turn to come and see me though, isn’t it? You should come and pick me up, before I get stuck here for good. We can take a vacation to somewhere nice.”

“I’d love to,” she replied. “Remember last time we met? It was, uh, on a festive date. It’s coming up again, what do you say we hang out then?”

“Think you can make it a week earlier?”

Sombra frowned. “I… yeah. Yeah, if I hurry. You know the… unofficial docking place? Ask around for the platform. They’ll tell you in which one I’ll be waiting.”

“Thanks, Sombra,” the blonde whispered. “I’ll be there. Don’t be late.”

“Count on me,” she nodded, having time to catch one last grateful look before the Jedi hung up.

_Shit._

The slicer was on her feet and packing in a matter of seconds. She took her basic equipment, including whatever she’d need to block out the Jedi Temple’s security systems and evade pursuers. The lightsaber she’d made for herself went on her hip, and after a moment’s thought, she also grabbed the one Angela had gifted her, which she’d adapted into a saber-pike.

She was already at the door when her main computer beeped. She locked the door behind her and ran, tapping her datapad as she did it.  Sombra only looked at them when her ship was already on its way in hyperspace, and when she did, the information fit in like the final piece of a puzzle.

What she’d collected on Morrison, as expected, had many links with her files, but only one particular connection in the database had been flagged red – her investigation on Gabriel’s apprentice. The one she’d dropped because the damn Jedi Shadows should be the ones to take care of it.

“Fuck.” She skimmed through the files, focusing on the yellowed highlighted words. There were too many matches for it to be a mere coincidence – way too many times that activity Sombra credited to the apprentice happened dangerously close to Jack’s visits to the area. “ _Fuck._ ”

The information kept flowing in – amounts of money too slow to be noticed, slowly but surely vanishing from the Order’s coffers and reappearing later on distant corners of the Outer Rim. Orders issued directly from his office that ended up in tragic loss of important members. Promotions of younger Knights that followed a pattern –

_“Hijo de tu puta madre!”_  she slammed her fist on the wall.

Sombra closed her eyes and prayed she’d not be too late.

 

* * *

 

Sombra waited in the docks, without knowing if her friend would make it. Every minute felt like an hour. Every hour felt like a day. She itched to launch a full blown rescue mission, but she also knew the importance of being ready for a quick escape. The slicer told herself over and over that Angela was resourceful and intelligent and if anyone could make it out, it would be her.

She was still plagued by the possibility that Morrison might take not only one but the two most important people in her life. Sombra audibly exhaled in relief when the camera feed showed the blonde approach, but only when they were halfway through the mid rim did she stop checking for pursuers and turned her attention to other important matters.

Like the man Angela had brought with her.

He was one of the masters, Sombra knew that – Rutledge, if she remembered correctly. She asked him where he wanted to go and no more than that. The less she knew, the better for everyone involved. She dropped him off where he’d requested, with a credstick and fake IDs, and then set them in course to Dantooine.

Once all that was done, she finally allowed herself to collapse, the five days of stress and little sleep taking their toll. She was still too pumped up to sleep, but the trip to the Outer Rim would still take at least a day. Her friend’s closeness brought more comfort than she could put into words.

The sounds of sniffling didn’t quite register at first, but when the dampness touched her skin, she realized Angela was crying. She had absolutely no idea how to deal with that.

“H-hey,” she stuttered.

“He knew about you,” she whispered. Sombra felt ice in her veins. “I mean, not about _you_ , I think, but he knew I had… someone. That I was breaking the rule.” She pressed her face on the slicer’s shirt. “I almost didn’t contact you – didn’t want to put you into danger.”

“He’s the apprentice,” she rubbed her thumbs on the blonde’s cheeks, wiping away the tears. “I should never have stopped looking, Ángel, I... it seems so obvious now.” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Now that we know it, we can act on it.”

“He’s hiding in plain sight,” Angela leaned back against her, and Sombra placed her chin on the woman’s shoulder, her cheek brushing the other’s neck. “I can’t imagine the amount of power that’d take. And there’s nothing we can do until we know just how much of the Order is compromised. As much as I hate… twiddling my thumbs and waiting for things to happen, I don’t know what else we can do.”

She stood still for a long moment, brushing her nose against the Jedi’s jaw, taking in her scent.  It didn’t escape her how Angela shivered to her touch, or how her breath hitched with each of Sombra’s advances. “There is something,” she mumbled, knowing it would ruin the mood. “I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, on the very moment I learned the truth. You won’t like it.”

“The current situation leaves very little to be liked.”

The slicer sighed. “Who was the one person who could ever go toe to toe with Morrison? The only one who gave him a headache?”

“Darth Regnus, but – oh. _Oh._ ” The blonde turned to face her. “That’s…insane. Doing the Khamor Bhakva _–_ we don’t even know if it works. There are no registers of it anywhere.”

“There’s no reason it shouldn’t. There would be no point in hiding it so much if it was useless.”

“Sombra –”

What she did next was definitely daring, leaning forward and pressing their lips together just like that. The kiss was brief and though it was not by far her first, it sent her heart racing in a way she’d never experienced before. Angela’s movements were shy but curious, and when she pulled back, the jedi was flushing a bright red.

“Sometimes,” she shifted her stance and cupped Angela’s face with her palms. “The boldest measures are the safest.”

 

* * *

 

 

They walked together until they found themselves more or less in the middle of nowhere. It was a beautiful view, Sombra had to give it that much. The grassy hills, the gentle wind, the warm sun to their backs – the telltale signs of a peaceful place, as long as no one was bringing Sith lords back from the dead on it. Once she’d decided there was enough distance between them and any sort of human settlement – which was really not so hard to do in Dantooine – she halted on a random point of the meadow, as good as any.

As far as shady rituals of necromancy went, the Khamor Bhakva was surprisingly straightforward on its ingredients: it required a Jedi, a Sith, and an object of the dead person in question, though that last item was not mandatory. Sombra brought it anyway – the broken hilt of the vibroblade she’d stolen from Gabriel when she first ran away.

The slicer put her hands on her hips and looked around. “I think here will do.”

“I suppose so. We…”Angela halted on her tracks. “We never talked about the ritual before, never traded notes on its specifics. I guess now would be a good time for me to tell you that I only know the Jedi half of it.” She paused. “I mean, I know your role is to _pierce_ , but not much beyond that.”

“And I know yours is to seek and bind,” she replied. “The how is up to you.”

“There’s…something else. An obstacle, if you will.”

Sombra took a sit on a large rock formation and the Jedi slid to the ground in front of her. “Do tell.”

“The soul brought back by the ritual is supposed to be… in peace with the Force. I very much doubt that applies here.”

The slicer sighed and looked out to the horizon. “Do you think we should risk it?”

“As you pointed out, the alternative is doing nothing. I’m just… concerned, is all.”

Sombra stood, walked over to her friend and knelt. She took the sword hilt from her bag and placed it between them. “So am I, Ángel. But we found this thing together, didn’t we? We were tested, and we passed. We have one another and we can do this.”

The blonde took her hands and squeezed, staring at their intertwined fingers. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

She let their minds come into contact in that unique and deeply intimate manner she was gradually growing used to. It was Angela who spoke first, words Sombra could not recognize from any of the languages she knew. She picked up when the other left off anyway, complementing them with her own part of the ritual, foreign sentences coming to mind in a whim.

She knew it was working when she felt the Force around her shift, slightly at first and then with increasing power. Sombra realized if they lived through it, they’d have to leave Dantooine, because the disturbance would be a beacon to the force-sensitive. Abruptly, Angela went still, and the slicer knew they’d reached a critical point.

The blonde’s eyes were closed, yet she could see them shift under the eyelids. Her light skin was even paler, sweat forming on her forehead. Sombra waited with held breath. The Force around her stirred once again, and her mind was whisked into another plane. She felt rather than saw Gabriel there, lingering between worlds, stuck on the other side of the veil that separated the mortal world from whatever was beyond.

Their bond, the one she’d worked so hard to silence, exploded into life, reacting to his presence with burning fierceness. It was a sensation she had trouble describing – like pain on a ghost limb. She knew what she had to do next – she sought, more with her feelings than with her mind, the point in which the veil was thinner. And then she pushed against it with all her might.

She drained strength from her emotions, as it had to be for a Sith. She’d experimented much with dark side powers, and though she’d learnt that feelings such as love were just as powerful as anger, she also knew that usually implied in their corruption. Affection would turn into jealousy and possessiveness. Admiration would turn into envy. Confidence would turn into arrogance. Those emotions, she’d like untainted.

Sombra gave into rage instead. It came with an ease that concerned her, and it was no surprise when it focused on the figure of Jack, the man who had killed her master. Jack, who even before that, stole Gabriel from her. Jack, who had almost taken her best friend, too. If there was ever someone she hated, it was him.

The fortunate coincidence was that her spite matched Gabriel’s, and the disrupting in the Force her feelings caused met with his, sheer double-edged fury ripping a hole in the veil between worlds which kept the man dead. From there, though, it was Angela’s job to finish, guiding the spirit back to the land of the living.

Sombra knew something had gone wrong when his shape, which had been steadily materializing in the mortal world, brusquely bent and grew dark. An inhuman screech came from his throat, his very skin seeming to melt and distort. She understood what was happening instantly – he wasn’t at peace with the Force, and his fury prevented Angela from connecting with him for long enough.

She took over where her friend couldn’t, reaching out to Gabriel through their link. It was a mistake. The little piece of him she held so dearly within her soul was the very anchor he needed to consolidate his presence back among the living. It was torn from her without ceremony, staggering. It was worse than his death – it felt unnatural, _wrong_ and cruel.

The pain was enough to knock her out for a split second, spots dancing over her vision when she recovered. Sombra winced, her face sore from where it hit the ground, pushing herself to a sitting position as slowly as she could muster lest she faint again. She looked at him – _Gabriel._

He was definitely there now, definitely on their side of the veil, yet he still looked irrevocably broken, his skin dissolving and regrowing faster than it was humanly possible. He stood bent over as the final bits of him formed, arms then wrists then hands. The tips of his fingers were still shimmering when he spoke.

“ _Jack,_ ” he hissed. His voice sounded strangely metallic.

“Gabo…” Sombra began. He turned to her fast enough to give a normal being whiplash, and his _eyes –_ the chocolate tone she remembered so well was missing. She dropped her gaze.

_What have I done?_

_“_ Where is he? _”_ the man took a clumsy step their way. _“Where is he?!”_

There was so much she wanted to say, yet the words were stuck in her throat.

“The Jedi Temple in Coruscant,” Angela supplied. Gabriel’s gaze dropped to her, as if he’d only just noticed her existence. “He leads the Order now, with the glory gained by your death.”

It seemed to be exactly what he wanted to hear. He laughed, a shrill sound of steel grinding against steel. And then, without any warning, he dissolved like dust in the wind – there one moment, gone the next – off to get his revenge, probably.

For a while, she was simply too stunned to act.

Try as she might, this time Sombra could not hold back the tears. She wasn’t sure what exactly unmade her – whether it was the Sith magic which made her feel unclean, or the way Gabriel was alive but felt dead to her, or his complete dismissal of her presence. It hurt. Everything about it did.

“He was like a father to me,” she found herself whispering. “I brought him back and he barely – he barely even looked my way. I brought him from the _dead,_ ” her voice broke. “And the first word he spoke was asking for _Jack._ ” She put her hand over her heart, where the pain was physical. “He took something away from me, he took –”

She wasn’t expecting Angela’s lips on hers, but she responded, hungry, her hands finding the other’s hips. There was no peace in the Jedi’s mind when they came in contact – just an alternation between apathy and a desperate need to _feel_. Sombra provided, her own body up to the brim with nervous energy. She was a mess of pain and fear and arousal and desire, the last two quickly drowning out the others with each of the blonde’s strangled gasps.

They rolled down the grass, taking their time with one another. Sombra did not feel weary. Angela did not feel sated. The rational parts of the two were aware that they were out of it, that the backlash of the ritual they’d performed was messing them up bad. It didn’t matter to either. They walked back to their room in the cantina, and then they did it again.

When Sombra woke up at the crack of dawn, the restlessness still urged her. She felt troubled enough to wake the fast asleep jedi lying next to her, in the hopes that either the woman would be recovered enough to soothe her, or that she could burn off her agitation with the blonde’s touch again. Right before she shook the other awake, however, something else caught her eye – the blinking light of her datapad.

Doing her best to be quiet, she stood up and walked over to it. A single notification called her attention, and her blood ran cold when she opened the picture attached.

_Wanted: Former Jedi Consular A. Ziegler – for treason, theft and conjoining with the Sith. See Master of the Jedi Order Morrison for details._

The anger that bubbled up within her was blind and irrational. The slicer knew Angela herself would likely take the tarnishing of her reputation in stride, but to her it was the last straw on a long list of offenses she’d taken from that man, and she was done with it.  Sombra packed her things up in half a dozen minutes, grabbing her lightsaber on the way out.

When her hand reached the doorknob, though, she hesitated, looking back at her friend behind her, still blissfully unconscious. She grabbed paper and pen and scribbled a quick note.

_Off to fix something. Might take a while. Go where you must –_

Sombra hesitated at her next words.

_I’ll find my way back to you._

_Love, S._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- As always, special thanks to BzArcher for beta-ing and the discord friends for ideas!  
> \- My jedi children are so emotionally abused it's not even funny  
> \- Yes they speak german in Alderaan  
> \- Pain is good  
> \- Up next: even more pain  
> \- _do you ship them yet_

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, thanks to the friends on Discord server for bouncing off idea and BzArcher, my resident loremaster, for beta-ing!
> 
> \- _Give me two more chapters and I will make you ship my rarepair_  
>  \- This got longer than I had expected and I had already planned it long, goddamit.  
> \- SW AU Sombra's backstory is a tale of increasing angst  
> \- They have different ages in this AU because _I said so_ , so Sombra is four, twelve and sixteen on each of her scenes, and Angela is little over seventeen when they meet. This is kind of a prequel to the main bit of the AU, in which I have Angela at 24 and Fareeha, Satya and Sombra at 23.  
> \- Dad Gabriel is best Gabriel, a pity he turns evil  
> \- Thanks a ton to everyone following the AU and I hope you guys enjoy it!  
> \- _two more chapters and I'm talking y'all into this ship, expect me_


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